The Dead Man

Chapter Fourteen

Riding in the elevator, Sherry Fritzshall welcomed me to the institute with a perfunctory recitation of its history while she fiddled with her earpiece, stamping her foot at its poor reception. She was a disinterested docent, making certain I knew that she had better things to do than escort me. Once we reached the eighth and highest floor, she deposited me in my office and promised to come back, saying it in such a way as to make it clear I wasn't to leave until she returned.

A young man dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt brought me a cup of coffee and said his name was Leonard and that he had been assigned to me, which was handy because his desk was right outside, and to let him know if I needed anything. He gave me a directory of institute personnel with office locations and telephone extensions and a sealed envelope that he said contained my user ID and password for the computer on my desk, making me promise to shred the contents after I memorized them.

Moments later, a young woman wearing wool slacks, a sweater set, and an institute ID badge hanging from a gold chain around her neck appeared at my door sporting a cheerful grin. She had piano player hands, her fingers long and delicate, a diamond engagement ring sparkling on her left hand.

"I'm Anne from HR," she said.

"That's some last name."

She giggled. "My last name is Kendall but everyone calls me Anne from HR."

I pointed to her engagement ring. "Looks like you won't be Kendall much longer."

Her smile vanished along with the light in her eyes as she made a fist with her left hand, burying the ring against her side. "Well, I guess I'll still be Anne from HR."

She gave me a stack of papers to fill out and instructions to return them to Leonard when I was finished. Filling out the forms, I got hung up on the question asking why I had left my previous employment. I had been forced out of the only job I ever wanted, told that the FBI would not take a chance on an agent who thought shaking was an aerobic exercise.

The diagnosis of my movement disorder is more description than explanation, the last neurologist I saw for yet another opinion apologizing that he couldn't help me. The shaking, muscle spasms, and contractions fit the tics diagnosis, he said. But, he added, the disconnected sensation in my head, a sort of visceral cognitive dissonance, brought on by fatigue and visual triggers, sometimes accompanied by weakness and loss of use of my legs, was not related to tics, was not some concurrent seizure disorder, and neither he nor anyone else could explain it. His only suggestion, made without enthusiasm, was a class of drugs known for their profound and sometimes irreversible side effects. When I declined, he said he understood and comforted me with the faint praise that I certainly was an interesting patient.

I couldn't argue with the FBI's decision to declare me physically unable to perform but that didn't make it any easier to accept. Not when the job was who I was. Not when I had chosen it over my wife and children only to lose them as well. Not when I rationalized those sacrifices in the name of the people I saved and served, especially those who'd been murdered whose silenced voices I had vowed to make heard.

The forms Anne from HR left me didn't have room for all of that. So, I scribbled my least favorite one-word answer: retired.

Since retiring, I'd done little more than wander, restless at being an otherwise healthy middle-aged man whose day consisted of roaming the aisles at the sporting goods store, taking in a matinee, or working out in the middle of the afternoon at 24-Hour Fitness, the youngest member of the cardiac rehab set, while the rest of the world worked. My one connection to my former life was the informal lunch group of retired cops. I stumbled whenever someone asked what I did; my confession to retirement sticking in my throat, grateful when the work Simon Alexander sent me changed my status to consultant. I took those jobs for the same reason I took the one Milo Harper offered. I only knew how to do one thing and I had to do as much of it as I could in order to breathe.

It didn't matter that those jobs reminded me why the Bureau had shown me the door. Or that they answered the questions Lucy had asked and I had refused to answer. Yes, I shake everyday but not all the time, more often than not giving no hint of my condition. And, yes I am scared to get behind the wheel when I'm vibrating and my head is fogged. I live each day like an acrobat on a high wire, always on the verge of losing control. I needed a safety net and, although Lucy volunteered, I wasn't convinced she would catch me when I fell.

Sitting behind my new desk, looking out my new window, watching the muddy water in Brush Creek meander through its channel across the street from the institute, I felt restored. I wasn't retired. I wasn't a consultant. I was an employee, for however short a time. I marveled at the curative power of work, the validation of being needed and the comforting structure of W-4's, group health insurance, and profit-sharing plans until Sherry Fritzshall knocked and interrupted my meditations.

"Here's your schedule," she said, handing me a sheet of paper.

It was a list of appointments with the institute's project directors. Sessions were scheduled in thirty-minute increments in a conference room on the eighth floor beginning at 9:30 A.M. Lunch was at noon with her in the institute's private dining room. The last meeting on the schedule was at 5:30 with Milo Harper.

"Whose idea was this?" I asked.

She tightened her jaw, holding back her first response. "Mr. Harper said you should speak to each of the project directors."

"Yeah, but whose idea was this?" I waved the sheet of paper at her.

"Mine. These people are quite busy. Scheduling your meetings was the most efficient way for you to meet with them."

I stood and handed the paper back to her. "I'm sure it is. Cancel the appointments."

Her face colored, either because she was angry with me or embarrassed at having to inform the staff that the new kid on the block had overruled her. I couldn't tell which and didn't care.

She brushed imaginary lint from her suit, the gesture calming her as she cleared her throat. "All of them? What about the one with Mr. Harper?"

"Especially that one."

Hands balled into hammerheads and jammed onto her hips, she fired back. "And our lunch?"

I cocked my head, gave her my most apologetic grin. "No, let's do lunch."

I escorted her to the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"For a walk. By myself."

Her cell phone rang and she turned away, taking the call. I left her in my office, waving to Leonard who jumped out of his chair.

"Hey, Mr. Davis! You can't go anywhere without this."

He handed me a Harper Institute of the Mind ID card threaded through a lanyard so I could wear it around my neck. My picture was pasted in the center. It was a headshot that included the shirt and tie I was wearing but no one had asked me to say cheese since I walked through the front door.

"It's a key card and an ID card," Leonard explained. Swipe it on the sensors to get access to the other floors. Mr. Harper said to make it a master. It opens every door in the whole place. Anne from HR forgot to give it to you. When she brought it back, you were busy so she left it with me."

"If she's Anne from HR, what's that make you, Leonard from the Eighth Floor?"

"It makes her hot and me horny."

"Steady, son. She's wearing an engagement ring."

"Yeah, but she's not wearing a wedding ring. Got to keep hope alive."

Anne had acted like she'd been sentenced to a hard forty when I mentioned her pending marriage, making me wonder whether Leonard's hope was built on inside information.

"Hope is good. So, who took my picture?"

"There's a video camera in the wall behind Nancy's desk in the lobby. HR freezes the frame and pulls it off to make the ID card. Saves having to stand you up against the wall for a photo shoot."

I had noticed the camera but not given it much thought. "Not bad. Who was in charge of security before I got here?"

"I was," Sherry said as she left my office. "See you at lunch."